By Any Means Necessary
by tobinfic
Summary: Sam and Callen make far better undercover investigators than they do love doctors.


The bickering could be heard from way down the corridor, making its way past the shooting range and into the main bullpen. Even Hetty looked up from her small, screened-off area and frowned.

"We're going to have to do something about that, G," Sam warned. He made a small, decisive fold in the paper before him, his large fingers nimbly handling the delicate figure he was crafting.

"It's their problem," his partner replied from behind the day's newspaper. "Let them work it out in their own way."

"There's only one way to work out their problem," Sam said, frowning at his creation. "And that's not good for the team." He minutely adjusted a fold and immediately looked more content, placing it carefully down on his desk in an empty spot.

"Kensi isn't really going to shoot him," Callen sighed, closing the newspaper. "Relax."

Deeks and Kensi arrived in the bullpen, minutes after their voices did. This time the argument seemed to be about coffee spilled in Kensi's car, coffee spilled when Deeks had leaned out the window to smile at a girl driving a sporty silver convertible.

"I said I'd clean it up!" Deeks said, clearly exasperated. "See, I have the napkins right here!"

"You spilled the coffee on _me, _Deeks," Kensi yelled, yanking open a drawer of her desk and pulling out a spare t-shirt. "It was still hot!"

Deeks, clearly wanting to see how far he could push his partner, merely waved the napkins at her and grinned.

"Want me to kiss it better?" he offered.

Kensi slammed the drawer shut and stalked off to change shirts, hip-checking him so hard he stumbled sideways. Deeks threw out a hand to stabilise himself, and flattened Sam's origami creation completely.

"Mr Deeks!"

Hetty's imperious summons gave the unlucky Deeks an escape route. Sam watched him go, his eyes narrowed. He leaned forward and picked up his flattened creation.

"It was a nice dog," Callen offered.

"It was a cat," Sam corrected, screwing up the paper and throwing it at the recycling bin. He missed, which only served to annoy him further.

An unholy noise from the balcony announced that Eric had another case for them to work on.

"When I find out who gave him that vuvuzela I'm gonna break their neck," muttered Sam as he headed for the stairs. Kensi, fresh from her visit to the ladies' locker room, was already on the upper floor. Hetty released Deeks, who stepped back nervously to let Sam take the stairs before him.

"Oh yeah," Callen sighed. "Today's going to be just _great_."

"Mr Hanna has a point, Mr Callen," Hetty said from somewhere around Callen's elbow. "There is an issue with team unity at the present. This does not bode well for your work."

"Hey, my team is professional," Callen said defensively. "I wouldn't want anyone else backing me up out there."

"They'll do their jobs well," Hetty agreed. "But that's not the same as being a team. Your team of four works best when its composite partnerships are stable. You and Mr Hanna are stable. Mr Deeks and Miss Blye are not. You'll have to do something about that."

"What do you suggest I do?" Callen asked, perhaps a little more sharply than was wise when dealing with Hetty. "Kensi and Deeks were doing fine. It was a little rocky at first, but they seemed to find their groove. But lately it's been just like it was at the beginning. How am I supposed to fix that?"

"I suggest that you investigate the root cause of their disharmony, and resolve it," Hetty advised. "By any means necessary, Mr Callen, and with all possible haste."

"Yeah, I'll get right on that," Callen muttered as he headed up the stairs and into the ops centre.

Inside ops, Eric had pictures of several sailors up on the big board.

"What did I miss?" Callen asked.

"All five of these sailors went AWOL two days ago from their base in San Diego. The body of this man, Petty Officer James Mason, was found yesterday floating in the Stone Canyon reservoir. Once LAPD identified him, they kicked his case over to us."

Further pictures of the bloated, distorted body of Petty Officer Mason popped up on screen, obviously taken in a mortuary.

"Stone Canyon's a long way from San Diego," Sam observed.

"We're gonna need to find out if Mason is the only one of those sailors that ended up on a slab," Callen said. "Sam and I are heading out to San Diego to talk with the base commander, see what we can find out there. Deeks, Kensi, you talk to LAPD and see if anybody matching the description of any of the other sailors has turned up."

Callen half expected a look of annoyance to pass over Kensi's face as she missed out on a trip to San Diego, but her countenance was calm and focused. He was pleased; he was right. His team were professional. Whatever Kensi's issues with Deeks were, she was clearly able to put them to one side to get the job done.

Deeks was already on his cell phone, negotiating access to the officers who had discovered Mason's body. He nodded to Callen and turned to walk from the room. He paused by the door to let Kensi walk out first, bowing in a courtly fashion as she went by. Kensi, mindful he was on the phone, just rolled her eyes and walked through, but Callen noticed that she swung her hips just a little more than was called for, and that Deeks' eyes were firmly glued to his partner's ass as he followed her down the corridor.

"By any means necessary…" Callen said contemplatively.

"C'mon, G," Sam said, heading for the door. "If we hustle we can get there in time for lunch. I know a great café that does the best Italian in San Diego."

"That part of your SEAL training?" Callen joked as he fell in step with his partner. "Advanced hand to hand combat, drown-proofing and identification of the best restaurant in a ten mile radius?"

"You know if I told you G, I'd have to kill you," Sam replied with a completely straight face.

"You're driving," Callen told him.

Sam snorted. "Like there's any other way."

They were halfway down the I-5 when Callen told Sam about his conversation with Hetty.

"So Hetty's told you it's your job to get Kensi and Deeks to play nice?" Sam shook his head in amusement. "Better you than me, G."

"I think I know what their problem is," Callen replied.

"You mean other than Kensi is so tightly wound she makes my training officer at BUDS look like a kindergarten teacher, and Deeks is her exact polar opposite?"

"Yes, other than that. It's sex."

Sam took his eyes from the road to stare at Callen.

"You think they're not getting on because Kensi's more of a man than Deeks is?"

"Hysterical, Sam, and no, not their gender. I mean, sex. They're arguing because of their sexual tension."

"I'm not so sure, G," Sam said, sounding doubtful. "I don't think that Deeks is her type."

"I think that he is," Callen argued, "and that's the problem. You remember that stuff that Kensi put in her fake internet dating profile? Dates at the zoo?"

"Didn't sound like her," Sam allowed. "I'd have thought she'd be more into speedway, or football."

"Yeah, well, I think that it _is_her, as much as the speedway or the football. But in the office, around us, she tones that side down."

"'Cos we're men?" Sam said, sounding a little annoyed. "I'd like to think I'm a little more progressive than that, G."

"Because this is a hard enough job to do when you are a man," Callen argued. "I think that Kensi plays down her softer side to get the job done. I think that a lot of female agents do."

There was silence in the car as both men considered that.

"Hetty scares me G, I'm man enough to admit that," Sam said eventually. "Nothing soft about her."

"And then along comes Deeks, who manages to get an automatic pass into the man club, while being all about going to the zoo and yoga in the park," Callen said, expounding on his theory. "That's gotta smart. Plus, he's a handsome guy, and being partnered up with him puts them together for a lot of the day."

"You think Deeks is handsome?" Sam teased, deftly sliding the car through a gap in traffic. "You got something you need to tell me?"

"You know you're the only one for me, big guy," Callen told him, rolling his eyes. "But you get what I'm saying?"

"I see it," Sam said. "But are you sure?"

"He was totally checking her ass out when she left ops."

"He does that a lot," Sam reminded him. "And not just with Kensi. The guy's a guy."

"Yeah, but she was definitely swinging her hips more than she normally does. And think about what they were arguing about this morning."

"He spilled coffee on her," Sam said, confused.

"While he was checking out _another woman,_," Callen reminded him.

"Ah," Sam said, enlightened. "You know, you're starting to make sense now."

"So, you in?" Callen demanded. "I need to get Hetty off my back."

"I'm in," Sam said eventually. "But if word gets out I'm playing love doctor, then payback will be a bitch."

Callen briefly considered the many ways that an ex-Navy SEAL could wreak revenge, and nodded. "It's a secret. Just us."

"Let's get this Mason case wrapped up, and we'll get on it," Sam said, speeding up. "After lunch, that is."

Back in Ops, Hetty nodded to Eric.

"You can cut the link now, Mr Beal. Thank you."

"Do Sam and Callen know that there's a transmitter in the car?" Nell asked, her eyes wide.

"No, Miss Jones, otherwise I doubt that Mr Hanna would have been quite so forthcoming," Hetty replied, a slight hint of smugness detectable in her tone of voice. "You will, of course, refrain from mentioning it to them."

Both Eric and Nell knew this for the order that it was.

After Hetty had left to harass one of the other units working out of the bullpen over some charges on a credit card, Eric and Nell were left to ponder what they had heard.

"I think Callen's right," Nell said after a few minutes. "I think Kensi and Deeks have a lot of sexual tension."

"Really?" Eric asked casually.

"Oh yes," Nell went on thoughtfully. "All the bickering and one-upsmanship has to come from something."

"Hmm," Eric said noncommittally.

"You disagree?" Nell asked.

"Not all couples fight," he shrugged.

"Ah, but they're not a couple yet," Nell said triumphantly. "But they will be," she added.  
>"Nell," Eric said in alarm as Nell logged onto a secure station and began tapping away at it. "What are you doing?"<p>

"I'm helping," Nell said firmly. She shot him a sideways look. "Don't you want to help me, Eric?"

Eric paled a little, but bowed before the inevitable.

"Good boy," she said, patting his hand. "Now access the internal cameras of the police station Kensi and Deeks are in at the moment, will you?"

"Why?" Eric asked, as he did as he was told.

"Because it's hard to trap them in an enclosed space when you don't know where they are!" Nell explained as she frowned at her screen.

"You and Hetty have a lot in common, you know," he quietly to himself. "Not just the height thing."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," she told him archly, and Eric was clever enough not to say anything more.

"I'm sorry Kensi, say that again? I can't hear you." Callen frowned and blocked his other ear to eliminate any noise from his end.

Her background noise was incredible. Wherever she was, it sounded like Kensi was on a red alert.

"You're locked in where? An evidence room in Beverly Crest PD? How come?"

Callen's eyebrows rose as he got the basics of what was going on.

"The door won't open? _None_ of the doors will open? The station's on lockdown? How long….three _hours_? I hope you don't have to use the bathroom….Kensi, I'm sorry, I didn't know…alright, I'll check in with you later. Bye."

"Everything all right with her and Deeks?" Sam asked, back behind the driver's seat as Callen got into the car.

"They were doing fine, going through some of the security footage from the cameras around the reservoir when all of a sudden there was a security breach in the Beverly Crest PD. The whole building's on automatic lockdown and she and Deeks are stuck in the evidence room until someone can shut the computer off."

Sam let out what would be, on a less masculine man, a delighted giggle. As Sam was Sam, however, it was clearly only a snort of amusement.

"It gets better," Callen said with only the slightest touch of glee in his voice.

"How?" Sam asked.

"She's really gotta pee."

This time, they both laughed.

"Nell, you gotta let them out," Eric hissed.

"I can't!" Nell said, a little flustered. "The system's been taken over by a tech from the LAPD. If I try to interfere, they'll be able to trace us."

Eric ran a check, just in case she was wrong, but as usual, she wasn't.

"Maybe they'll be able to use this time to get a little closer?" she said hopefully.

"You heard Sam and Callen, Kensi's getting…desperate. She won't be in any mood to be romantic," Eric sighed.

Nell looked despondent, and Eric felt sorry for her. She had only been trying to help, and she had helped him hide his vuvuzela after Sam had threatened to do unspeakable things with it.

"Maybe they'll get something from the camera footage instead," he offered. "After all, they do have nothing else to do in there but work."

"Yeah," Nell said, a little brighter than before. "Thanks, Eric."

The smile she gave him was small, but it lit up her face. Eric felt a little proud about being the one to make her smile, then realised he was staring at her, and quickly looked away.

"Kissing!" Callen said suddenly, banging his hand on his desk for emphasis.

"Not right now G, we're working," Sam said without missing a beat. He paused in the middle of typing up of his report to deflect the rolled-up paper ball that his partner threw at his head.

"Not us, idiot, Deeks and Kensi. We get them into a scenario where they have to kiss each other and then, boom, tension release."

Callen looked at him expectantly. Sam considered it.

"It could work," he said. "But its September, G. New Year's is a long time away and I don't see any mistletoe hanging about the place."

"Mistletoe isn't our only option," Callen said mysteriously. "Just be ready to back me up when I need it."

"I always do," Sam said, returning the rolled-up paper ball just as an irritable-looking Kensi and Deeks made it back into the office.

"I don't get how you two made it to San Diego and back in the time it took for Deeks and I to get locked in an evidence room," Kensi complained.

"It wasn't all sweetness and light for me either, peaches," Deeks said, taking his seat alongside Sam. "You're nasty when you've got to pee. And not the good kind of nasty, the other kind."

"You didn't have to talk about _waterfalls_so often," Kensi spat out, and Callen intervened.

"Up in ops," he ordered. "Let's share what we discovered about Mason and the other sailors."

Kensi and Deeks jumped up and rushed for the stairs, Kensi in an attempt to get there first, Deeks in an attempt to annoy her. Sam made a kissy-face at Callen, who sighed and scrubbed at his face with his hand.

Seven hours spent reviewing camera footage had evidently paid off.

"Cameras picked up this car approaching the side entrance to the reservoir at two twenty five am," Deeks said as they watched the grainy footage on the big screen. Two burly men exited the vehicle, opened the trunk and picked up a large, ominously unmoving object. It was clearly Petty Officer Mason's body, wrapped in a swathe of material.

Together the men cut a hole in the thin fencing around the reservoir and stepped through it, carrying the body.

"The camera loses them here, but another catches them a few minutes later," Kensi went on, nodding to Eric who cued up the right footage.

A second image, even more distorted than the first, showed the two figures thrown their burden into the deep water of the reservoir. They then disappeared. The first camera feed saw them get back into their car and drive off.

"Can you enhance the image to get a licence plate?" Sam asked.

"Only a partial," Nell replied. "But I have started a search for the vehicle on traffic cameras at that time stamp."

"What did you get in San Diego?" Kensi asked.

Sam answered. "They're all based in the cryptography unit on base. The base commander said that they were all tight, used to go out as a group when they had liberty. They had all been granted a five day pass, and said they were planning to come to Los Angeles."

Sam pulled up the faces of the missing men again. "None of them are locals. Makes sense that they'd want to see the city, experience the night life. The hotel they were staying in said that their beds hadn't been slept in for the last three days of their stay. They have their bags stored, LAPD have sealed off the rooms."

Callen glanced at his watch. It was late, and it had been a long day, but there were still four men missing.

"We'll search the hotel rooms and their bags, and then call it a day," he decided.

"I've put the hotel's address in your GPS," Eric told them.

"I'll call if the traffic cameras get a hit on the car," Nell added.

The rooms didn't yield much. The hotel was a budget one, and didn't have much in the way of amenities. It was cheap though, which was probably why the sailors had picked it. They had three rooms.

"Two for sleeping, one for getting lucky," Sam observed. At Kensi's puzzled glance, he explained.

"If you strike out, you share with one of your buddies. If you get lucky…"

"Then you get the single room," Kensi finished. "Classy."

The rooms were all clean, at least, although nobody would vouch for the bedcovers. None of the bags belonging to the sailors had anything out of the ordinary in them. One of the rooms had a safe, though, which the manager of the hotel was only too happy to provide the code for.

"Wow," Deeks said reverently. "That's a lot of cash."

He took it from the safe and he and Callen counted it.

"Over three hundred thousand dollars," Deeks noted. "Small bills, non-sequential numbers."

"What are five sailors doing with that much cash?" Sam asked. "No way that's legit."

"It has to be why they're missing and Mason's dead," Kensi said.

"There's nothing else in the safe," Sam confirmed. "Just the cash."

"Check under the beds," Callen advised. "You never know what falls out of people's pockets."  
>Deeks and Kensi left the room with the safe to do a last check of the other rooms. It was Deeks, in the single room, that found something.<p>

"Got something!" he hollered, and rolled out from under the bed as the others crowded into the small room. He held out a casino chip to Callen, who took it and held it up to the light.

"The Belvedere," he said thoughtfully. "Anybody heard of it?"

"I have," said Deeks, dusting himself off. "Fairly new, caters mainly for rich kids looking to gamble their allowances away. I, or rather I should say, Simon Spencer has been known to cruise the high roller tables from time to time."

"What's that?" Sam asked, leaning forward to pluck something from Deek's back pocket.

"What?" Deeks said, turning to look as Kensi made an abortive grab for the flash of coloured material that Sam held in his large hand.

"They're panties," Sam said, a look of disgust on his face. "You carry panties around in your back pocket Deeks?"

"No!" Deeks said firmly, at the same time as Kensi punched him hard in the shoulder. "They're not mine, Sam!"

"I didn't think you were the leopard print bikini brief kind of guy, Deeks," Sam said, holding the offending article at arm's length. "I just wanted to know why you have them."

"They must have been under the bed with chip," Kensi said, staring fiercely at her partner. "Deeks must have accidentally picked them up when he was rolling around under there."

"Well, they're evidence now," Callen said, holding open an empty bag as Sam slid the panties into them.

"Evidence?" Deeks said, frowning as he beat more dust and dirt off his clothes. "There's no way of knowing how long they were under that bed. Look at me Callen, I'm covered in dust bunnies. The maid clearly doesn't bother cleaning under there."

"You're probably right," Callen said. "But you never know. We'll log it anyway. Worst case scenario, the panties sit in an evidence bag until they're deemed not usable in the investigation. Then they'll be disposed of."

"I bet there's some girl out there right now wondering where they got to," Sam said, laughing as he filled out the front of the evidence bag.

"Probably wondering what she'll wear the matching bra with now," Kensi said, under her breath.

"You gals should really think ahead," Deeks advised her. "Pick up a second pair of panties when you're buying the first. I had a girlfriend once that did that."

"Thanks for the tip, Deeks," Kensi said coldly.

"If you want me to go with you on your next shopping trip, I'm totally down with that," Deeks said, pushing the conversation back onto its usual dangerous territory. "I bet you're a Victoria's Secrets girl, aren't you, Kens?"

"Not as much a one as you are, Deeks," Kensi said smartly, before turning and leaving the room.

"Hey, I told you those catalogues are for research purposes!" Deeks called after her, dogging her heels. "This one time, I was undercover as a lingerie buyer…"

Their voices trailed off down the corridor.

"I'm surprised she didn't shoot him," Sam remarked as Callen bagged and tagged the casino chip.

"Maybe he's growing on her," Callen replied, dialing Hetty on his cell phone to report their progress.

"Yeah, like a fungus," Sam replied. He walked to the window and twitched the curtain to one side. Deeks and Kensi were just exiting the building. She was still stalking towards the car, but stopped short once she finished patting down her pockets. She looked back at Deeks, who was holding the keys to her car in his hand and looking smug. She began to advance on him, hand held out, as he walked backwards, out of Sam's field of vision. They both disappeared from view then, only to appear a few minutes later, Kensi looking smug and Deeks rubbing at his mouth.

"Hetty says that we're to hit The Belvedere tomorrow night. Do some recon, try and find out what happened to the missing sailors." Callen joined Sam at the window to watch Kensi get in the car, then lock the doors behind her, making Deeks beg to be let in.

"Sounds like a plan," Sam said.

"It'll also help the whole resolving tension plan under way," Callen said smugly. "Deeks is already known there as a high roller, and Kensi can go with him as his arm candy. He'll be in a tux, she'll be in a little black dress…."

"An air of mystery, a hint of danger, very James Bond," Sam mused, as Deeks was forced to get down on his knees to plead to be let into the car. "It could work."

"It's one of my plans," Callen said confidently. "Of course it'll work."

The next morning they reconvened in the ops room. There was still no word from the sailors. Eric had pulled up a three dimensional floor-plan of the casino onto the big board, and Deeks was walking them through it.

"I've only been in the public areas," he told them. "LAPD heard wind of a prostitution ring working out of the casino, but we were never able to prove anything. Plenty of pretty girls hanging around that disappear for significant portions of the evening. The first floor is devoted to roulette, craps, blackjack, the usual. Access to the second floor is up this main staircase here in the middle of the room. Up there are the high roller tables, bar and even, get this, a thirty two piece orchestra and dance floor."

"Ah, a band," Hetty said fondly. "There's nothing like dancing to real music, or at least, that's what JFK used to say."

The team's collective eyebrows rose.

"You danced with John F Kennedy?" demanded Kensi.

"I never said that, Miss Blye," Hetty said, her tone of voice returning to its usual brusque, business-like manner. "How do you plan on accessing the rest of the building?"

"There's a door here," Deeks said, casting a strange look back at Hetty as he rotated the 3-D image on the screen. "You need a security card to access it, and only staff have those. It's guarded by some heavies in badly-fitting suits, and you're only let through by one of the casino staff. Rumour has it that upstairs is where the girls work, but I never got through the door."

"We're going to have to find a way through," Callen said, his eyes narrowing as he observed the screen. "And we're also going to have to patch into their security systems."

"I can't hack them remotely," Eric said from a console at the side of the room. "They've got top-notch security. We're going to have to go in and plant a remote transmitter."

"We need eyes in the room too," Hetty said thoughtfully. "And a way to get through that door. We'll make the owners of the club think that they have a problem with their security system. Mr Callen, you'll go in to fix it, and plant the transmitter Eric will need to monitor the cameras. Sam will go in later tonight as a patron but blend into the background. When the time comes, he'll distract the guard on the door long enough for you two to go through it and search the building for our missing sailors."

Kensi and Deeks nodded, looking determined.

"This is an information retrieval operation," Hetty said sharply. "If you find the sailors, call it in and I'll send armed backup to get them out."

"Since we're there, I know a district attorney that would love us if we could find evidence of that prostitution ring," Deeks said, frowning a little. "I know this isn't an LAPD operation, but…"

Hetty nodded. "A little gift for the LAPD and the district attorney wouldn't do us any harm, and leverage is always useful. Look around, Mr Deeks, but remember that our priority is finding the four missing sailors."

"Understood," he replied.

"You two, come with me," Hetty beckoned as she walked towards the door. "Fittings are required. Mr Callen, start the process of getting into the casino."

"You think I'm sexy now, just wait until you see me in a tux," Deeks bragged to Kensi as they trailed Hetty out of the door.

"When did I ever say that I thought you were sexy, Deeks?" Kensi replied, sounding vaguely horrified.

"You don't have to say it, but I know you're thinking it," he said smugly, and then disappeared from view.

"How does that man stay alive?" Sam said, amazed.

"The fact that she hasn't killed him just supports my theory," Callen reminded him. "Come on, I need to figure out which wires to cut, and you have to practice blending into the background."

Callen looked up at his partner, and then a little further up.

"You may need a bit of practice," he concluded.

They sent another agent out to surreptitiously interfere with the casino's security systems, provoking a panicked call to the company that provided the security. However, Eric intercepted the call and dispatched Callen to "fix" it instead. A simple transmitter hardwired into the main feed for the cameras provided the NCIS ops room with a view of the casino's internal security system, and Callen's part of the job was done.

Hetty provided Sam with a well-fitted suit, some very expensive shoes and enough burn money to buy a few drinks and play a few hands. "Anything you win comes back to me," she warned him, and he faithfully promised to bet on red at the roulette table, as she instructed.

Kensi was introduced to the department's newest toy, a security card-reader that was attached to an elastic strap that fitted around her thigh. During Sam's diversion, they would have to get an entrance card from the guard at the door, scan it through the reader and replace it while whipping another, blank, card through the reader, creating their own pass card in the process. She spent most of the afternoon practicing the quick motions necessary to duplicate the card. Deeks helped by watching her and offering advice on how to position the strap on her thigh. After Kensi banned him from the room, he went over to LAPD headquarters and gathered all the information they had on the two men that owned the club. Neither had any links to the navy or terrorism, but neither were they squeaky clean, either. Both had prior convictions for violent assault and fraud.

Sam went in an hour ahead of Kensi and Deeks, a quiet press of a hundred dollar bill into the palm of the doorman enough to secure his entrance despite not being known before. They arrived later, Kensi looking like an exotic flower in a clingy red dress, hanging onto the arm of 'Simon Spencer', who had been dressed in Hetty's finest. Sam had to grudgingly admit that Deeks hadn't been lying. He did clean up good.

He was well received at the casino, flirting with the female croupiers and remembering the names of all of the servers that brought drinks to the table. He was generous with his tips, and kept a firm grip on Kensi, whom he insisted as introducing as 'Peaches'. He tucked her under his arm and made her blow on his dice for luck. Sam privately thought he was pushing that luck when he demanded a kiss every time he won, but Kensi played her part of the beautiful airhead well, giggling and smooching Deeks whenever he demanded it.

Pretty soon they were invited upstairs where the real action took place. After ten minutes, and picking up a few hundred dollars at the roulette wheel to keep Hetty happy, Sam followed them upstairs and settled into a seat at the bar. He watched as Deeks threw more money around on some of the craps tables, kissed Kensi a little more, and in a move that seemed to really surprise her, led her out onto the dance floor for some fancy footwork. A genuine smile spread across Kensi's face as she was dipped and spun, and it made Sam smile too. Maybe there was something in Callen's theory about Kensi having a softer side.

Over Kensi's shoulder Deeks made eye contact with Sam and he nodded. It was time for him to be thrown out of the casino. Holding his half-empty drink, Sam got up and headed for the bar, purposefully shouldering into an innocent member of the public. Predictably, his drink spilt and Sam started to yell at the poor, confused gambler. Within seconds the burly security guard who had been positioned at the locked doorway started to move towards them. Deeks performed an enthusiastic spin on Kensi, who lost her grip on his hand and stumbled into the advancing security guard.

If Sam hadn't known to be looking for it, he would have missed it. Deek's hand moved so quickly that the security guard, now with his arms full of a giggling, clingy Kensi, didn't notice his pass being detached from the lanyard around his neck. As Deeks moved in to apologise to the guard, he passed the card to Kensi, who whipped it through the card reader high on her thigh. She then passed it back to Deeks, who managed to reattach it under the guise of patting the guy firmly on the chest to indicate no hard feelings.

Sam yelled a bit more at the hapless guy he had chosen as cover, which hastened the guard away from Kensi and Deeks. The security cameras were all determinedly pointing the other way, thanks to Eric back in ops. Nobody watching the feeds in the casino's security room would have seen the incident. As Sam blustered in the face of the guard, nobody was watching Deeks pass Kensi a blank plastic card, or Kensi whip it through the card reader, copying the guard's card details onto it. Sam kept up his bluster until he saw Deeks and Kensi gain access through the locked door, then he backed down. Playing the aggrieved victim, Sam left the club.

Across the street Callen sat in his car, monitoring the feeds from the cameras on a tablet computer. Sam slid into the passenger seat.

"Are they in?" he asked.

"No problems with the door, thanks to your consummate acting skills," Callen said dryly. "Was acting a skill they taught you in SEAL school too?"

"You should have seen my unit's performance of _Romeo and Juliet_," Sam told him, straight faced. "It would have made you weep."

"I'm sure you made a beautiful Juliet, Sam," Callen said, as deadpan as Sam had been.

"Reviews were good," Sam agreed, taking the tablet from Callen's hands. "Where are they now?"

"This feed here is what Eric is giving the casino's security room," Callen explained, pointing at the right hand side of the screen. "It's a loop of pre-recorded empty corridors. The feed on the right is actually what's happening."

"Do they know there are two feeds?" Sam asked, handing the tablet back.

"You know, I may have forgotten to tell them that," Callen said, smiling.

Sam grinned back. "The old "hide your face from the camera by kissing your partner" routine?"

"There's a reason why it's a classic," Callen told him. "I'm going to talk to them now."

Callen tapped his earpiece, activating the microphone transmitter.

"Kensi, Deeks, we've got you on camera. There's no sign of any guards about yet, but it's probably best that you're ready to distract them."

"Understood," Kensi said tersely.

"According to the blueprints, there's a flight of stairs at the end of the hall. One floor up has eight rooms, no significant electronic devices indicated in the scan I did earlier. Second floor up had a high electronic signature. It's got the security room, and what looks like offices. Down three stories is the basement."

"If there are prostitutes working here, they're likely to be up," Deeks weighed in.

"If they're hiding kidnapped sailors, the basement is a better place to keep them," Sam argued.

Callen watched in horror as a door opened at the far end of the corridor Deeks and Kensi were currently standing in.

"Someone's coming," he told them tersely. "Play it safe, pretend that you're heading upstairs."

On the feed Sam and Callen watched as Kensi tugged Deeks towards her and launched herself passionately at him.

Callen looked at Sam, speechless. Clearly, this was going to take less work than he thought it would.

"Hide your face, Kensi," Sam encouraged. "Give him something else to focus on in case he figures out you're not one of the usual girls."

Kensi Blye was a very good undercover agent. She manoeuvred an uncomplaining Deeks so that the angle of his body blocked her face from the view of the oncoming guard. Deek's hand slid possessively along the tanned length of her leg, lifting it so it rested over his hip. Her dress fell away, revealing a hell of a lot of leg.

"He'll be on you in five, four, three…" Callen counted for them, as Deeks let out a good imitation of a drunken laugh, and Kensi buried her face in the side of his neck.

"Can't wait to get started, could ya?" the guard said, leering openly at the display in front of him. "Upstairs, room three is ready for you."

"Thanks man," Deeks, said pulling Kensi close to him so her face was hidden behind her hair and his arm.

They staggered together down the corridor, rebounding off the walls as they kissed fervently.

"That's some good acting right there," Sam had to admit, as they made it through the door and separated immediately. "You'd have thought that they'd done that before."

A brief squabble followed in the stairwell as to whether they went up or down, which was settled by Callen ordering them downstairs to check out the basement. The cameras stopped functioning at the bottom of the stairwell, and they had to rely on audio comms only as Kensi and Deeks explored the basement.

"What's down there?" demanded Sam.

"Usual basement stuff," Kensi reported. "Paint cans, broken furniture, stock for the bar…"

"Over here," Deeks interrupted. "There's a door with one of those swipe locks."

"Odd for a basement," Sam noted.

"Hang on," Deeks said suddenly. "Kensi, take my spare."

There hasn't been a way to disguise a gun anywhere on Kensi, and her clutch bag wasn't big enough to hide one in. A bigger bag would have looked odd in her role as arm candy to a rich man, so she was currently without a weapon. There was the sound of Velcro ripping, which was Deeks un-strapping his second, smaller gun from the ankle holster.

"This is such a girl's gun," Kensi was heard to complain. "It's tiny, Deeks."

"In that dress, Peaches, you're not fooling anyone," Deeks told her. "You're the girl tonight, suck it up. And some of us are secure enough to carry smaller guns, if you understand me. Open the door on three."

On the count of three there was an electronic beep, and the noise of a door unlatching.

"We're going in," Kensi reported. "Long dark corridor. No cameras."

"Only one door at the end of it," reported Deeks. "Another swipe lock."

There were a few more tense seconds, and then another beep as the door unlocked.  
>"Report," Callen ordered. "What's behind the doors?"<p>

There was a silence for a nerve-wracking ten or twenty seconds, and then Kensi said, faltering slightly, "We found them. The four sailors are here."

"What's their status?" Callen asked.

"Hard to tell, it's dark," Deeks replied. "Hold on."

Callen and Sam waited impatiently in the car for news.

"They're alive," Kensi said eventually. "But barely. Callen, they've been beaten badly. _Really_badly. We're gonna need ambulances and stretchers to get them out of here."

"Get out now," Callen ordered. "Once you're clear we'll trigger a fire alarm and evacuate the civilians before moving in to secure the building."

"I need proof of the prostitution ring first," Deeks interrupted. "Callan, please, five minutes."

Callan let out an irritated sigh. "Fine, Deeks. Five minutes."

The cameras picked them up again at the bottom of the stairwell. They hurried upstairs, looking grim. They headed up to the very top floor, pausing before entering the corridor. This was the most dangerous area of the casino. It not only had the official casino security room and counting out area, which were obviously heavily guarded, but also what were thought to be the administrative offices of the two partners. The offices were the target of Kensi and Deeks, who waited for confirmation from Sam and Callan before quickly slipping down the empty corridor and using their pass key to get into the offices.

Sam and Callan watched as Kensi stood at the door, looking out for anyone who could spot them. Deeks traded her the smaller pistol for his gun from his shoulder holster silently, before heading to the computer.

"You need this," Kensi told him, fishing in her cleavage and producing the flash drive that Eric would use to remotely access the computer's files. She threw it to him and he caught it one handed, lips already pursed into a smile.

"Not a word," Kensi warned him, and turned back to the door.

Duly warned, Deeks sat down behind the computer and plugged in the drive.

"I have control of the computer," Eric told them all from ops. "I'm accessing the hard drive now, looking for evidence."

"Quick as you can, Eric," Sam said. "They haven't got any backup in there."

It was a tense few minutes as Eric peeled back the layers of the computer's encrypted files, but soon Nell's voice was heard.

"We've got them," she said with satisfaction. "Spreadsheets, bank details, even files on customers and video recordings of their, uh, visits, probably used for blackmail."

"Kensi, Deeks, get out of there," Callen ordered.

He and Sam watched on their live feed as Kensi and Deeks swapped guns again, and Kensi resettled the flash drive in her cleavage.

They had to wait as there was a change in guards, and it took some time for the corridor to empty out again. They made it past the camera room and down into the stairwell before Eric triggered the fire alarm remotely. In the confusion on the main casino floor, nobody noticed them slip out of a door they should never have gone through. As soon as the confused casino patrons had been urged out onto the street, Callen gave the order for the heavily armed strike team to hit the casino. He and Sam followed them in, and were able to overcome the security guards and take the building.

Ambulances arrived to take the badly beaten sailors to the hospital, and other agents arrived to escort the captive security guards to the boathouse for interrogation. The two owners of the casino had been on the main gaming floor when the fire alarm first sounded, and were quickly rounded up. A line of scantily-clad young women were bundled into LAPD cruisers and taken away for questioning.

They headed back to headquarters so Hetty could lavish praise on them, confiscate Sam's winnings and take back their costumes and equipment. Preliminary reports from the boathouse revealed that the owners of the casino had discovered that the cryptographers had been using their innate math skills to count cards at the casino. They had walked away with over three hundred thousand dollars in one night, and that hadn't pleased the owners. The next night, men employed by the casino grabbed them off the street as they head out to another casino, and had brought them back to the Belvedere for a punishment beating that had proved too much for Petty Officer Mason.

"We'll get the rest tomorrow," Hetty had told them. "You all did good work today. Time to go and get some well-deserved sleep. Come in late tomorrow, you earned it."

Sam and Callen watched in amusement as Deeks and Kensi immediately began squabbling about the size of his second gun, and whether it actually qualified as weapon, or as Kensi put it, "a child's toy".

They left together for the parking lot, waving goodbye over their shoulders before immediately falling back to bickering again.

"So much for your theory, G," Sam chuckled. "They locked lips plenty this evening, and they're still arguing."

"I don't get it," Callen sighed, looking up the corridor with a frown on his face. "I was sure that would work."

"He let her use his gun," Sam pointed out. "That's a start. You'll just have to work on a new plan tomorrow. Seven am, running?"

"Meet you at the beach," Callen told him, gathering up his keys.

Hetty watched them go from her seat behind her desk, where she was logging in the cash she had received back from the operation. She shook her head sadly at Callen and Sam.

"Fools," she said to herself. "Blind to it, right under their noses…"

Frankly, it was getting embarrassing. She had hoped that she had nudged Callen in the right direction, but he was as blind to the obvious as he ever was. She sighed. He and Sam were just going to have to figure it out in their own time.

However long that was.

The knocking on her door distracted Kensi from the television that was on in the background as she threw the makings of a meal together. She sighed, and paused Top Model just as Tyra was demonstrating 'smizing' and looking like a deranged woman. A photogenic deranged woman.

"You have a key for a reason, you know," she grumbled as she opened the door.

"Ah, but then I wouldn't get to see your smiling face greeting me home from the hunt," Deeks said, brandishing a carrier bag that clinked in a welcoming way and a smaller gift bag that looked expensive.

"You call going to the liquor store hunting?" she said, fondness edging through the exasperation in her voice.

"Some of us grew up in the urban jungle, ok?" he teased, depositing the bag in her kitchen. "What's for dinner? Your manly man has returned from the hunt and he demands food from his woman."

"Really?" Kensi asked, unable to control her smile. "That's what brought you over here at eleven o'clock at night? The thought of my burger-flipping abilities?"

"No," he said, opening his arms. "The thought of you naked, on top of me brought me over here. And I brought you a gift. The burgers are just an added extra."

She entered into his embrace eagerly, raking her fingers through his mop of blond hair. Despite the hard time he got from crew-cut Callen and Sam with his shaven head, Deeks refused to cut his hair. He claimed it was better for undercover work that way, but after she had admitted how much she loved to run her fingers through it, he had solemnly promised never to wear it short again. It had been after the third or fourth time they had made love, when they had been draped over each other, still learning the angles and curves of each other's bodies. She had rolled her eyes and taken it for one of his fanciful decorations, but in the seven months they had been taking their partnership beyond the professional level, she had come to realise when he was being serious.

"I bet I know what's in the bag," she said, once they had separated for air. "Although I'm amazed that you found anywhere open at this time of night."

"I wasn't lying about going undercover as a lingerie buyer," he told her solemnly. "I still have my contacts."

He handed over the gift bag and she pulled out a pair of leopard-print panties, almost identical to the ones she had lost earlier today.

"Two pairs," she said, investigating the bag. "How thoughtful!"

"I should never have kept the first pair," he said, toying with the hem of the t-shirt she had changed into on coming home from the office. "You did try and tell me not to. Sorry they ended up in our evidence locker."

"The next time we get locked in a room with no cameras for seven hours, I get to strip _you_ down to _your_ bare skin and steal _your_underwear," she threatened.

"Oh baby, I'm all for that," he agreed, grinning.

He pulled her back in for another kiss, sliding the palms of his hands under her t-shirt up over the smooth skin of her stomach to cup her breasts. The sensation of his hands, skin calloused from handling a gun, over her nipples never failed to make her wet, and he gently teased her until they were standing proud and erect under her shirt.

She pulled the shirt up and over her head, keeping the matching shorts on only for a few more minutes as Deeks fell to his knees and started kissing the skin over her stomach. His fingers found the waistband of her shorts and tugged at it until the soft cotton pooled around her feet. She leant backwards against the kitchen counter for support as Deeks continued to kiss his way southwards.

"Let me hear you this time," he muttered into her skin. "You don't have to be quiet, like at the police station."

She didn't, this time, so she took great pleasure in grabbing a handful of his hair and showing him explicitly how she liked to be loved. He was, as always, incredibly willing to please.

They abandoned the burgers she had out, ready to be cooked. They left the beers he had gone out to get. They even left the replacement underwear scattered on the floor where they had been dropped. A trail of his clothing led into the bedroom, where he had colonised two dresser drawers and a quarter of her hanging wardrobe space. He had a side of the bed now, and a drawer in the nightstand to leave his guns and badge in. His toothbrush sat in the cabinet next to hers, and his fancy, over-priced conditioner took up space in her shower cubicle.

Much later, as they lay draped over each other, sated and sleepy, he murmured, "I thought that Sam figured us out today."

"Sam?" she said blearily. "When?"

"He was watching from the window when you pushed me up against the vending machine and had your wicked way with my mouth," he said, two fingers lazily tracing out meaningless patterns on her back.

"Did he see anything?" she asked, yawning.

"I don't think so," he said, frowning. "The angle was wrong."

"So what?" she shrugged. "It's not against the rules. Unlike ravishing your partner in a locked evidence room."

"I would have thought that somebody would have figured us out by now," Deeks said, ignoring her jibe.

"Hetty probably knows," Kensi said sleepily. "She knows everything."

"Should we tell them?" he pressed.

"No," Kensi yawned, "Not yet. Let them work it out for themselves. It won't take them long. We're not that subtle."

"Yeah," he said, settling back into the mattress and dropping a kiss to her forehead. "They're investigators. Shouldn't take them long to figure it out."

To their bemusement, Hetty's amusement and Callen and Sam's general annoyance, it took another five months for their teammates to stumble onto the truth. What made them all howl with laughter was that for those last months, Callen and Sam had apparently been waging a campaign to make them fall in love.

"A word of advice, Callen," Kensi told him, wiping her eyes when their Valentine's Day fiasco backfired spectacularly. "Stick to the undercover law enforcement. I don't think you're cut out to be a yenta."

"Yeah," Deeks added, clapping him companionably on the back. "Or maybe you should start a little smaller. The Eric and Nell situation could do with a helping hand, don't you think?"

Kensi and Deeks watched as Callan chased after Sam, promising him that playing love doctor for their tech nerds could only be a good thing for the LA branch of NCIS as a whole.

"Do you think we should tell him that Nell's wearing an engagement ring on a chain around her neck?" Deeks asked, playing absently with Kensi's hair.

"No," Kensi said, smiling at Hetty across the room. "Let the master sleuths figure it out for themselves. It's more fun for the rest of us this way."


End file.
